


demon blood shall be your mother

by batyatoon



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Aftermath, Body Horror, Broodmothers (Dragon Age), But I Repeat Myself, Disturbing Themes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fridge Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Missing Scene, POV Second Person, Why Is Everything Terrible, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:31:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11179995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon
Summary: After leaving the Deep Roads for the last time, the Warden has a bad night.





	demon blood shall be your mother

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, this is ultimately BethCGPhoenix's fault.
> 
> The title is from the lyrics to Will Sturman's excellent Grey Warden marching song, "[No Way Out But Down](https://soundcloud.com/user-689275515/no-way-out-but-down)."

It’s the darkspawn blood, of course.  Somewhere in your head you know that, even in the endless foul tunnels of the nightmare, even as you lose the memory that you’ve done this part already and it’s over: it’s the blood, and the silent singing that comes through it.

You thought you understood, earlier in that same changeless underground night, when you talked with Ruck, fighting down pity and horror at what he’s been reduced to.  And then you thought you understood again, after that, when you first saw the Archdemon in the flesh and felt its call tug hard at the taint in your blood, powerful as its beating wings.

You knew later -- and you know again, now, back in the broodmother’s cavern in the dream -- that you understood nothing.

You’re in two places at once, in the dream.  You can see yourself, a little scurrying mote with a bitterly bright staff, biting and stinging; and you can see yourself, a vast hideous hulk of naked flesh, set in the stone of the cave like a snail in its shell; and both of you know that you must be killed if you are to survive.

The broodmother’s mind is a welter of insupportable foulness and torment, such that you half expect her to beg for death -- but no, you _want_ to live, you shriek and roar and lash out in rage at the little things that have come to kill you, cry for aid from your brothers who were once your foes in some distant longago, welcome them gladly when they close in to defend you.  You _want_ to live, you _must_ live, for the unborn young in your womb and the thousands you have yet to conceive will die with you if you die, and the singing all through your blood says _they must be born_ \--

And you lurch awake in the close dimness of your tent, screaming and sobbing, struggling against Alistair's arms.

He's saying your name, over and over.  You try to say his, and choke on the memory of blood and worse in your mouth; you lurch to your knees, and lunge for the edge of the tent, and yank the hide upward enough to thrust your head and shoulders through, and vomit up what feels like everything either of you has ever eaten.

When the spasms finally end, leaving you wrung out and trembling, Alistair carefully draws you back into the tent to lean against his shoulder. He holds a palmful of water for you to rinse your mouth, and a rag for you to spit into, and very gently takes your face in one hand so he can wipe away the sweat and tears and flecks of bile with a damp clean cloth.

“There,” he murmurs, and however shaken he may be, there's nothing but soothing calm in his voice. “All better. Here, drink this.”

You’re too exhausted to do anything but swallow when he holds the cup to your lips: wine, with elfroot potion mixed in, both of them strong.  The rim of the cup rattles against your teeth before he lowers it; the shivering isn’t going away yet.

“Hey, hey.  Shh.  It’s all right.”  He bends his head to peer into your face, brushes a straggle of hair away from your eyes; he’s trying hard to stay reassuring, but you can see how worried he is.  “You’re all right, my love.  It’s over.”

“I was her.”  It comes out in a thick hoarse mutter, sounding entirely too much like the mad dwarf woman Hespith and her relentless rhymes, and another hard shudder goes through you.  “The broodmother, in the Deep Roads.  I was _her_.”

“Oh, Maker’s breath,” Alistair whispers, stunned.  “That’s … that must have been horrible.  I can’t even imagine.”

“You don’t want to.  It was vile.”  It’s better to have it out, though; you can feel the bowstring tightness in your muscles slowly starting to drain away, the shaking growing less.

“You know, I suspect you’re right about that.”  One corner of his mouth quirks ruefully.  “I could feel you dreaming. I knew it was bad, but …”  He shakes his head.

 _There was something else, though,_ says a quiet voice in your head. _Something you realized_. _That was the worst part._

No, it was nothing. Nothing important, at any rate. Nothing you need to remember, or want to.

Alistair's still talking, settling his arms around you and rocking gently, absently.  “Sounds like it topped the worst darkspawn nightmare _I_ ever had, I can tell you that much.  Outside of the archdemon, anyway.  There was this one … well, you don't want to hear about that now.”

“No,” you mumble, “but tell me something else.  Just … just talk to me?”

“All right,” he says at once, and a little more of the coiled tension in your gut untwists.  Because the sound of his voice is helping; the longer he talks, the more you feel yourself _here_ , in his arms instead of in the dream, and the closer you feel to safe.

(Not perfectly safe, of course.  That hasn’t been an option for a long time now, not for either of you.  But even this approximation of it is nice.)

“You know,” Alistair muses, “every so often I miss having the kind of nightmares that normal people have.  Going out to the market square and realizing you don’t have any pants on, that sort of thing.  Or falling down the stairs, only you never hit the bottom, just … more stairs.  Did you ever have that one?”

“Don’t think so.”  The wine is working its way through you, warming and soothing, and Alistair’s presence is doing the same.  You don’t quite feel up to closing your eyes yet, but you half-close them, letting the interior of your tent blur into a featureless haze.

“Huh.  Funny, that, how some people have the same kind of dreams and others don’t.  I wonder why that is.  Of course, Grey Wardens have the same kind of dreams all the time, but that’s different.”

 _It didn’t happen this time, though._  The thought’s distant and vague at first, but it doesn’t go away.  Instead it turns into a quiet counterpoint under his voice as he rambles on.

If Alistair didn’t have the same dream as you, that means it wasn’t _sent_ ; not a summoning from the archdemon or anything like that, just one more random smear of filth borne along on the ebb and flow of the darkspawn undermind, like a slick of rancid grease on the current in a gutter.  But some corner of your mind won’t let go of that, as if it’s a puzzle to be solved, why the dream of being the broodmother should come to you and not to him.  Both of you bear the taint, both of you saw her and fought her; is there some difference between you that might …?

Alistair’s hand moves in a gentle circle on your back. “It’s hours yet till morning.  D’you want to try and sleep again?  I can mix up a hot posset for you.”

You hear his voice twice, in another dreamlike doubling.  Once here and now, warm and kind and dearly loved, doing his best to comfort; and once in your memory of the day you first met, a stranger’s voice but friendly, struck by a sudden thought. _You know, it’s just occurred to me that there have never been many --_

“Oh,” you hear yourself say numbly, “oh no.”

“No posset?”  Alistair blinks.

“No,” and it’s a groan, deep and shaken, “no, oh Maker help me, _no_ \--”

You find yourself clutching your own head, just short of screaming aloud because there’s no way to dig the sudden burning certainty out of your skull, any more than there's a way to scrape the taint out of your blood: it's in you, it's part of you now, and there is no bottom to the horror this time, none.

Dimly you're aware that Alistair's calling your name again, increasingly frantic, and pulling your hands down and away from your face. Fresh sweat trickles down the sides of your forehead, and stings in fresh scratches.

“What,” he pleads, “tell me, what's the matter, what did I say?”

He’s so earnest, and so wrong, that a jagged laugh rises in your throat like more vomit.  You swallow it back, and clutch at his hands to anchor yourself.

“You said it,” you tell him, “the day we met, do you remember?  This is why.   _This is why there aren’t more female Grey Wardens_.”

Alistair’s brows draw down in confusion … and then slowly, slowly, his eyes begin to widen.

“It’s the blood.”  You can’t force down the laughter this time, and it burns your throat coming up and splinters into something closer to sobbing.  “That’s how they’re made.  And it’s how we’re made too, they feed us the blood -- and it’s how we die, _you_ told _me_ that, when the taint gets too strong and the Calling comes we go down to the Deep Roads to die fighting darkspawn, but if we’re women that’s kind of a _problem_ , isn’t it, because _what if we don’t die --_ ”

And -- Maker, did Duncan _know?_  Is this one more thing, like the nature of the Joining and the perpetual nightmares and the Calling itself, that he knew and never told you, because if you were warned you would never have --

You don’t know what makes you stop speaking: the painful tightening in your throat, the pressure and heat behind your eyes, or the abrupt adamant in Alistair’s voice when he says “No.”

For a moment it’s just that: you blinking up at him, his hands holding yours firmly, and a look of unyielding intentness in his eyes as they meet yours.

“No,” he repeats, quieter but no less firm.  “That’s not going to happen to you.  Nothing like that is going to happen to you, ever.  I won’t allow it.”

He isn’t saying _because that’s nonsense_ ; he’s saying _even if it’s true_.  Although possibly without the _if_ , because you can tell he doesn’t doubt it for a moment, any more than you did.  Some things are too clear to be doubted, once suspected.

But the steel sincerity in Alistair’s eyes is also too clear to be doubted.  He means it, means it absolutely and with the whole of his heart: he will not let that happen.

You close your eyes and lean into his shoulder again, and you don’t say _promise?_ , and -- because it would hurt him, needlessly -- you don’t say aloud what both of you know.  There may be only one way to keep it from happening, and both of you will choose that way if need be, without hesitation.

Knowing that makes you feel sick at heart, and comforted at the same time, and the prospect of trying to sort through that is too exhausting to contemplate. But you can stay like this, and let him hold you, and maybe for a little time both of you can just breathe.

 


End file.
